Friday, October 22, 2004

Actually, this part is about Washington D.C. So if you've come to read more about Baltimore, um, tough cookies.

So Sunday, we drove about 20 minutes, parked the car, and took the Metro into Washington D.C. Wow, its amazing. We walked down the National Mall (I wanted to yell "run forrest run" so bad, but bit my tongue.), and past the Washington Monument. Our first stop was the Holocaust Museum. There was so much to see there, and it truly put a bit of a damper on our morning. Honestly, how did all of that happen? Man, we're lucky.

Next we took the Metro to Chinatown and had lunch, they had great hamburgers! J/k, we had Chinese food and it was fabulous! Then we took the Metro to Union Station, and that was super cool. I bought my Mom some Bush buttons there. We hopped on a tour bus (and yes, we hopped) from there. Larinda was cool enough to keep her passes from last time and we kinda snuck on with those and didn't have to pay again. Woohooo! Got to see the Capitol Building and then we realized the bus wasn't going to the White House, so we got off and walked a few blocks to the White House. We had our picture taken by another tourist, who had a thick English accent. So instead of saying cheese, or counting to three, he says: "ready...steady...go!" (we thought that was funny---especially Larinda, she's crackin her crack in the picture). By the time we left there, we had to book it back to the Metro to get back to our car so we could take Loza to the airport.

D.C. was awesome, I wish I had a couple of weeks to spend up there. That's really the only way you can see it all. Check out the pictures below.

Monday, Larinda and I went to this HUGE outlet center, Arundel Mills, and shopped till we dropped. Literally. I flew back to DFW Monday night, and because of stupid airline mistakes, got to stay the night in DFW and fly back Tuesday morning. This was really cool though: they put me up at the Holiday Inn, shuttled me back to the airport in the morning, gave me $15 for dinner/breakfast, and a $200 voucher for American Airlines. (Vegas anyone?) AND I got to hang out with these two crazy ladies. They had just been to Portland with their husbands (who are twins). So they sent their husbands back home on the plane and stayed the night in DFW. They were hilarious---told me they hoped I was nicer than them when I got to be their age. ha ha ha.

Anyways, that was my adventure to the northeast. Super fun times! It was so good to spend time with Lari and Loza. Miss you girls!

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

So a few weekends ago I flew out to Baltimore to visit my good friends Larinda and Loza (who flew up from NC). I have never been to that part of the US of A before, and lets just say it was fabulous! They have actual trees, and they're everywhere!! They weren't changing colors yet (a little too early), but it was still gorgeous.

On Saturday we drove up to the Inner Harbor in the heart of Baltimore. We spent all day wandering the crowded streets, taking in the ocean air, and for a little while, being amused and entertained by a crazy Australian man. He was a knife/torch/chainsaw juggling comedian who rode around on a bicycle. Seriously, I was cracking my crack he was so funny. Check out the picture below.

There was also an acappella group, who did mostly motown stuff. They were great! And they had a crazy man in the audience who danced to their music...the entire time. He was almost as entertaining as the group itself.

Later that night, we took the water taxi out to Fell's Point. Okay, now this was a bit of an adventure. Let me back up a little. Loza and Larinda wanted to go back and get a few souvenirs, I elected to wander around the discovery channel store, where I spent most of my time in a massage chair. This caused me to buy a massage book (since I've secretly...or not so secretly...harbored the thought of being a massage therapist). Since we were in Maryland, on the coast, it was pretty much required for us to have some seafood, but being out-of-staters, I asked the lady behind the counter where the best place to have crab was, and she told me to go to Obrycki's. (Apparently it was in some book called "100 places you have to go before you die" or something like that). So this takes us back to Fell's Point. Once we docked, we apparently decided to take the road less traveled and ended up in the ghetto. We saw a fight break out on the street, were thankfully redirected to a better route by the only other white person there, and eventually made it to Obrycki's. It was here, we discovered, that all of the other white people were hiding...lol. But the crabs were amazing, well worth the adventure. They dumped em out on the table, gave us some hammers, knives, and a bib and we were ready to go. MmMmMm. Tasty. We made it back to the water taxi, more or less unscathed (except for some crazy mexican men who wanted to marry us...hahahahaha). The day was great.

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

So I've decided to join the blogging community. Not sure I'm gonna have anything interesting to say. But some people think I'm funny, so perhaps, if nothing else, I can make you smile. More to come later...

Quote for the day: "If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you."